And so it was that shares in energy industry engineer Petrofac (PFC) slumped 14 per cent last Friday, putting them 26 per cent below their high for 2017. The catalyst was the announcement that the Serious Fraud Office, the UK's fraud buster, had widened a probe into a Monaco-based company, Unaoil, netting Petrofac, and had interviewed Petrofac's founder and chief executive, Ayman Asfari, under caution.
For Petrofac shareholders, the link between Petrofac and Unaoil is worrying. Go to Unaoil's website and it's difficult to get a clear idea of what the company does - "industrial solutions to the energy sector" might cover a multitude of sins - though it is obvious that it operates in the world's dodgier regions, focusing on the Middle East, central Asia and Africa. The connection gets murkier when we learn that Petrofac engaged Unaoil for "consultancy services" - oh yes - mainly in Kazakhstan. After all, that central Asian state ranked 131st out of 176 in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2016 produced by Transparency International, a think tank, where the lower the ranking, the greater the chances of corruption.